"www.fao.org/about/meetings/sustainable-food-systems-nutrition-symposium The International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition was jointly held by FAO and WHO in December 2016 to explore policies and programme options for shaping the food systems in ways that deliver foods for a healthy diet, focusing on concrete country experiences and challenges. This Symposium waas the first large-scale contribution under the UN Decade of Action for Nutrition 2016-2025. This presentation was part of Parallel session 3.1: Designing, implementing and monitoring evidence-based policies effectively with multiple actors"

2. Funded by:
Indicators of Affordability of Nutritious
Diets in Africa - Ghana
John Nortey
Head, MSU, SRID/MoFA – Ghana
1 Dec, 2016, Rome
FAO/WHO Symposium

3. Vision
• That food prices reflect the nutritious food people need for
active and healthy lives
• Food security: All people, at all times, have physical and economic
access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to meet dietary needs and
food preference for active and healthy lives. (FAO 1996)

4. Current food price monitoring in Ghana
• Ministry of Food and Agriculture – Statistical
Research and Information Directorate (MoFA-SRID)
collects prices of many foods in one or more
markets in almost every district in Ghana, at least
once per week
– Retail, Wholesale, and Farm Gate
• Data reported
– District level (weekly and monthly averages)
– Regional level (monthly averages)
– National level (weekly, monthly, annual)

5. Current Uses of the Data
• For making quality informed decisions
• Planning
• Calculating real prices
• To compare prices across countries
• Research purposes
• Food security analysis
• Policy formulation, project implementation, monitoring and
evaluation

6. Need to fill a data gap
• Currently missing: A statistic that covers price of a nutritious
diet
• Difficult to formulate informed policies and programs
toward food and nutrition security without data showing
the problem areas

7. Indicators of Affordability of Nutritious
Diets in Africa (IANDA)
– Tufts, University of Ghana, Sokoine University (Tanzania), Johns
Hopkins
– Funded by an IMMANA grant
– Problem: Food prices as currently measured do not
represent nutritious diets.
– Aim of the project:
To show how existing food price data monitoring
systems can be used, with very little added cost, to
understand the affordability of nutritious diets across
seasons and geographies

8. Piloting an expanded food list
• MoFA-SRID current food list includes 42 foods
• We are piloting an additional 22 foods in order to
construct indicators of nutritious diets
– Vegetables important in Ghanaian diets (nkontomire,
okro and several others)
– Additional fruits (pawpaw, avocado pear,
watermelon)
– Fresh fish
– Minimally processed versions of raw commodities
(cassava dough, meat and not only live animals)

9. Piloting an
expanded food list
Photos: Anna Herforth
MoFA-SRID enumerator
collecting food price data

10. Proposed indicators
• Cost of a minimally diverse diet
• Cost of nutrient adequacy
• Cost of a recommended diet

11. Next steps
• Pilot the addition of missing foods to existing food
lists in 9 markets across 7 districts (in progress)
• Work with the IANDA team to assess the results and
construct indicators
• Incorporate appropriate missing foods and new
indicators into food price monitoring systems at
national level
• Continue collaborating with stakeholders to
enable use of the data

12. Significance
• Ghana would be the first country to commit to monitoring
the price of nutritious diets
• This can be a model for how food price monitoring can
reflect nutritious food, and how this information can inform
policy, production, and program decisions to promote
healthy diets

13. Acknowledgements
• The IANDA team: Anna Herforth, Daniel Sarpong, Jennifer
Coates, Zachary Gersten, William Masters, Rebecca
Heidkamp, Fulgence Mishili, Joyce Kinabo
• MoFA: Harrison Opoku (The Director-SRID), Staff of MSU and
Market Data Collectors